Retrogressed
by xkohleyesx
Summary: And at the end of it all, he was nothing but the boy under the stairs... [disregards HBP and DH]


**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

Hey, all. Welcome me back. Well, I don't know if I'm officially back but I was bored one day and I decided that I finally wanted to post this fic that I wrote a REALLY long time ago. What can I say? I like it. But seriously though. A REALLY long time ago.

I do believe that it is pre-HBP and DH (at LEAST). There are _some _romantic undertones but it IS NOT hp/gw so if you agreed with JKR on _that_, you should probably not read it. There's no background story explaining the 'before' but you can get the gyst of it from this story (just a warning since it may bother some of you). And finally, it's sort of depressing. But as I said, I like it and I hope you do too. :)

DISCLAIMER: As we all know, I AM NOT JKR (since there are a NUMBER of things she did that I would not have), so no suing. It's my plot, my Mya, my style, but the other characters and places are hers.

And as always, REVIEW! Tell me if it really was worth coming out of my fanfiction retirement.

**

* * *

**

**Retrogressed**

The young woman paused slightly just outside the ward's door, her hand extended, hovering over the latch of the handle. For a moment, her breathing was haggard, her outstretched arm trembling slightly, her eyes shut tight, holding back tears she refused to shed. It was like this every time she came; she always had to hold herself together. She knew the moment would pass quickly, though.

With a deep gulp of air, her eyes opened once more. They glistened slightly. She plastered a big smile on her face, looking as though she were experiencing the happiest time in the world, and her hand finally clasped the latch and pushed the heavy door open with ease.

She swept through the doors, allowing her cloak to billow behind her. A squeal of delight erupted next to her. She turned to a little, blonde-haired girl of about four sitting on the hospital bed beside her, a genuine smile cracking her face.

"Miss Minnie!" The little girl squeaked once she was facing the child. "You're back! Can you do it again?"

Smiling, she nodded and spun around causing her cloak to exaggeratedly flutter once more. She stopped and watched as the girl giggled again, clapping her hands together furiously.

"Thank you, Miss Minnie!" The girl said as she jumped to her feet to give the other a hug. "Are you here to visit your friend again?"

The girl's query brought the other back to reality in a way that made her feel like she'd been struck by the Knight Bus. A sad smile replaced the joyed one on her face and she nodded to the child in her arms.

"Yeah," She said in a cheerless voice, placing the child back on her hospital mattress. "Yeah, I am. How is he, Mya?"

The girl, Mya, frowned a little. "He's a Gloomy Gus. Doesn't ever wanna play."

She nodded knowingly. He'd been like that ever since-

"Well, I think I have something that can fix that." She told Mya, tucking a stray strand of blonde hair behind the child's ear. Mya smiled at the news.

"Really?" she said.

The young woman merely sighed. "I hope…"

The little girl only smiled and nodded. _She is so smart_, thought the other girl._ She seems to understand things so beyond her years…_

With a slight push from the four-year-old, the young woman stood and resumed her trek to the other end of the ward. She waved and called greetings to the other children she'd come to know as she passed by their beds on her way.

She finally stopped at the very last bed in the room. The curtains were drawn shut so no one could see in. _Or out…_ Another person might have thought the bed that lay within was empty, but the girl knew better.

She reached out to the edge of the curtain, but hesitated. Drawing another deep breath into her lungs for strength, she slowly slid the thin fabric aside with the sharp sound of metal on metal. The noise made her cringe slightly.

She wasn't the only one.

A boy residing in the mattress behind the fabric quickly sat up when the sound of the curtain being draw met his ears. He looked around frantically, his eyes momentarily landing on the young woman before again roving to the other surroundings.

With a slight whimper he began squirming farther from where she stood.

The girl looked on sadly as he came to the bed's headboard and, finding nowhere else to flee, drew his knees to his chest, his arms hugging them to his body protectively.

It broke her heart to seem him like that, so… broken, so… lost. _So frightened._

She took a tentative step forward and looked on sorrowfully as his eyes widened, turning into two large discs filled with fear.

She remembered the first day she had seen him, remembered demanding why his glasses had been removed. The mediwitch had told her it was for his own safety, that they'd already been broken twice during the peaks of a couple of his episodes. She had reluctantly agreed with their decision, but understood his excessive jumpiness.

A sigh escaped the young woman's lips, vaguely contemplating how much scarier the world must be when everything in it was one fuzzy, unclear blob after another.

She wanted to slap herself for the noise when the boy suddenly jumped a foot off the bed and huddled his legs a bit harder. She watched as his frail, little body began to tremor all over. Soon, his head was shaking back and forth and his eyes were slammed shut tight against her.

"No… go away… no more…" he pleaded so quietly the girl had to lean in to hear him. His face was buried in his knees, still shaking to and fro.

The girl pulled away, realizing the truth behind his words. She took a deep breath, making sure to be quiet, and prepared herself to speak.

"It's alright, sweetie." She placated, her voice smooth and calming. She breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't sounded as despondent as she felt.

The boy's mop of black hair shook even faster, his body still trying to back away from the voice.

She watched, horrified, by the sight of her friend.

Abruptly, he stopped moving. The girl's breathing caught, fearing that the mere sound of her breath would startle him into another panic.

Minutes passed as the girl silently stood by the foot of the boy's bed, nervously waiting for him to do something.

Ever so slowly, the boy's head rose out of its hiding place behind his knees. His eyes moved from the girl's nervously fidgeting hands to her face. She was saddened that he didn't meet her eyes, though. He never did, not since-

"You're not gunna hurt me too, are you?" He asked in a childlike voice.

The girl almost felt her heart break then and there. She let a sad smile split her face as she exaggeratedly shook her head 'no'.

"Of course not, sweetheart. I only came to visit you and to give you something." She said in a maternal voice. It was odd to her when she first realized she'd been speaking to him much as her own mother had spoken to herself as a child. She remembered when someone had first brought it to her attention.

**FLASHBACK**

"_How do you know how to speak to him?" A tall, redheaded boy had asked one evening after a particularly difficult visit._

_The brunette girl stared at him with questioning eyes. "What do you mean?"_

_The redhead looked slightly embarrassed. "I don't know. It's just that you always know how to say something to make him feel better. You have a _tone_ to your voice."_

_Her eyes widened. "I… do?"_

_The boy merely nodded and continued on his way through the double doors of the ward._

The girl was wrenched from her memories as a hand unexpectedly grasped her arm, causing her to jump from the source and a small shriek to escape her lips.

Once again the urge to hurt herself for her stupidity overcame the young woman as she watched the boy's magnificent green eyes began to well up with tears. She hadn't realized when the dark-haired boy crawled away from his position at the head of the board or his arm reaching out to touch her.

She quickly sat herself next to the frightened boy as sobs quickly began to wrack his little body. Rubbing his back for comfort, she momentarily hesitated before pulling his shaking frame into her arms.

She felt as he immediately tensed at her touch but she refused to stop rubbing his back or release him as she cooed little nonsensical things into the top of his head.

The boy's sobs slowly subsided and the girl loosened her embrace, but she noticed he refused to pull away.

As a comfortable silence fell, the girl fleetingly thought that things had perhaps returned to normal. That the last month had been nothing but a bad dream. That they were sitting in their home before a roaring fire, holding each other without a care in the world before leaning in for a ki-

"You said you were gunna give me something?" The boy's tear-filled voice met the girl's ears, shattering her thoughts, her memories, and her hopes.

Visibly forcing herself to stay together, the girl's eyes opened (not remembering ever closing them) and looked to the boy's anxious face. She could never say 'no' to that face.

Nodding, she pulled from the pocket of her robes, a small box wrapped in green, foil paper, topped with a golden bow.

The girl watched happily as the boy's eyes lit up with glee when she handed the gift to him. He made haste in ripping off the shiny foil, and the box lid quickly joined the paper on the floor.

Slowly, a tiny golden ball with silver wings fluttered its way from its cardboard prison.

The boy watched in awe as it circled first his head, then the girl's.

"What is it?" He asked her, the same awe present in his voice.

"It's called a snitch." She explained gently, his happiness making her happy, though still fighting to hold back tears. It always pained her to have to tell him about the things he had loved so much. "It's part of a game. You have to catch it."

With a firm nod of acknowledgement, he surprised the girl with a hug, though never taking his blurry-eyed gaze off the fluttering gold ball. She watched as he hesitantly reached out to grip it and laughed slightly when it zipped just out of his grasp.

With a gasp of delight, the boy set off after the flapping orb. The girl wasn't worried about it getting away from him, though; she'd had the ball charmed to stay within a five foot radius of whoever she gave it to. She laughed slightly at the thought of the havoc that could have been caused with a normal snitch flying about a hospital.

She settled onto the bed again, watching the boy chase the ball down the ward, spinning in circles, the snitch always **just** out of his reach. A genuine smile pilled at her lips as she watched the other children in the ward join in on the chase.

She sighed.

_This__ is what's become of him, only months after ending his sixth year term. _

_This__ is what he's been reduced to: a four-year-old boy trapped in a seventeen-year-old man's body. _

_This__ is what he's turned in to; no longer the confident young man I'd watched grow up, but the frightened little boy from the cupboard under the stairs. _

_This__ is what's become of my friend… our Savior…_

"Happy Birthday, Harry." Hermione whispered, finally allowing the tears to pool and leak from her eyes and slide the length of her face.

* * *

HAHA! So did you see it coming??? Go figure. A HP fanfic about Harry Potter. ;) 


End file.
